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News and notes from T’Articulation’s events and adventures:
POETRY READING GROUP
Nov 9th 2026
It’s said that any serious poet needs a passing knowledge of known poets. Others would disagree, preferring to bring a fresh voice. But with the notion in mind, T’Articulation has set up a poetry reading group: a study group, if you will, catering to the needs of those of our poets who wish to engage, and others from the local writing community who’ve expressed an interest.
Meetings are held on the fourth Tuesday of each month, during the afternoon, barring December and August. If you are local and would like details, then please get in touch.
Our inaugural meeting happened at the end of October and, considering it was our first, seemed to go well.
One of our community members has written an account:
POETRY READING — FIRST MEETING: YEATS
We read and discussed three poems by W B Yeats.
The first poem, ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’ (from The Wild Swans at Coole –– 1919) was agreed to be the easiest to access: a short (16-line) poem, with a clear, simple rhyme scheme, and powerful because written from Yeats’s own Irish Republican viewpoint of the sacrifice of Irish people — many of whom had no automatic loyalty to the war effort in WWI and who might also only have very local loyalties within Ireland. It was also suggested that the personal history of the speaker of the poem/Yeats himself was very relevant and woven into the speaker’s fatalism and acceptance of death, having had some disappointments in love. and losses during his life.
The second poem, ‘Adam’s Curse’ (1903)? was harder to access:
long, with a looser structure but still a simple rhyme scheme (aa, bb, etc), although there was the occasional line which appeared not to scan and was explained convincingly as a way to alert the reader to some uncertainty in the account. This generated a lot of discussion on the point of view of the speaker — the possible identity of the woman to whom he speaks (Maud Gonne?) and the enduring problem of women having to ‘labour’ to retain attractiveness. Also, there was some question of any actual relationship and the ‘…old high way of love’ and what this might mean, and also the frequent misunderstanding of the term Platonic.
The third poem, ‘All Souls’ Night (Epilogue to A Vision)’, was considered quite dense and perhaps the most difficult to comprehend in terms of references. It has a definite rhyme scheme, but is possibly influenced (particularly in its seasonal and atmospheric references to All Souls, to Yeats’s involvement with Theosophy and other esoteric movements, and can, therefore, take some unravelling.
There were obvious differences in preference – perhaps more background reading is useful for accessing some of Yeats’s poems, where they reference specific historical or autobiographical issues, but it was a very interesting afternoon, well put together and generating a lot of thought and ideas.
Sue Evans
Thank you to Sue for this write-up, which captures the main cadences of the afternoon’s discussion. I, for one, will be reading more of Yeats, as the philosophical aspects of his work appear to connect with other areas of my studies.
AG
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HERSTORIES FROM PORTSMOUTH
OCT 21st, 2026
Over the past two years, our Lead Co-ordinator has been working alongside Dr Laurel Forster (University of Portsmouth) to deliver a series of life writing workshops to members of the community. Participants self-selected on the premise of having been involved in activism, locally, nationally or, indeed, internationally. A pilot group was funded by the university, and a following two cohorts, including an online version to accommodate those unable to attend in-person sessions, were funded by Portsmouth Creates’ ‘In Our Words’ city-wide venture.
Out of the work, often from individuals who had not considered themselves writers, important details of campaigns have been recorded that might otherwise have been lost. It is anticipated that much of the work will find its way into the city archive, and be referenced and quoted in academic publications. Of course, such things take time. However, amongst the prose offerings was also a good deal of poetry, much of it excellent. A collection of which was conceived, designed, collated, edited, formatted and printed.
HERSTORIES from PORTSMOUTH: Little Book of Big Poetry
Book Launch Thursday 15th October.
This was a lovely, relaxed little affair with several of the poets in attendance, who read to the gathered audience from their own submissions. Many of them had not been previously published and were thrilled to have had their work included. Book sales went very well, and the money raised will be used to further the Herstories project in some way. Cake and soft drinks, as well as goody bags, were supplied — helping to give the soiree a congenial and inclusive atmosphere.
The event was held in the studio area of the foyer at The Eldon Building, with thanks to The University Portsmouth.
AG
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THE BLAKE BOOK PROJECT
Steep Learning
The phrase learning curve seems to have gone out of fashion, perhaps because it can often be a huge climb — sometimes in gradated steps but also often with craggy, irregular inclines and the possibility of metaphorically broken legs. It’s, therefore, a huge relief to know our debut offering as a publisher is being printed this week. It’s been quite a while coming but we’ve turned it around in little more than two years, from conception to the anticipated volume. The industry standard is two years, with their slick machinery, their in-house professionals and years of collective experience. Mostly, they’re not corralling up to fifty authors, either, who can remain vague on the value of deadlines and who, for various personal reasons, might withdraw their work at the last minute. So, we are entitled to feel okay on the time we’ve taken and we look forward to a celebration event, next month, where copies of pre-ordered books will be handed to those who can attend.
I’m reminded of a story my father used to tell about one of the men from the village he grew up in. Albert took a cart ride up to London fancying a look at the giant cucumbers he’d heard tell were growing at Kew Gardens. He thought it would be worth the sixty-five mile walk home, and might be the only opportunity he’d get to see such things. Having witnessed the wonders, it having taken most of the day to get there, Albert slept out under the stars — before beginning towards home. When morning came, though, he’d lost his bearings and although there were a few signposts he couldn’t read them.
He was bright enough to know that if he walked in the wrong direction, he’d be further from where he could kick his boots off, further from a jar of his local ale. He fathomed, if he could find London Bridge he could get back, along the Thames’ wandering banks, to Oxford and from there it was only a twenty mile stroll to his door. Not daunted by such a thought he approached the next chap happening by.
Could thee kindly tell I where London Bridge might be?’ he asked.
‘Why, it’s in London,’ the man replied.
‘Yes, but so be we,’ said Albert, ‘and I just need to be put on the right road to get I ‘owm.’
Whereupon, the man looked Albert in the eye and said, ‘Well, if I were going there, I wouldn’t start from here,’ and promptly went about his way.
Of course, Albert arrived back in his village, somehow, and went on to tell the tale — and another about the cucumbers. He survived his adventure although it, like the Thames, had its twists and turns and, all in all, he had a circuitous route. But, above all, he learned from it. Just as we’ve learned much from this project and, in all truthfulness, if we’d known what we know now, like Albert’s adviser, we wouldn’t have begun where we began. But we’re still glad we began and we’re glad to note, as of today, the book is now in production. The presses are currently whirring and delivery will soon head our way.
Will we do it again? Probably! And, especially, because we won’t be starting from the same place; we’re already part way up the mountain, if not a little around the bend.
AG
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THE BLAKE BOOK PROJECT:
Hard Work Pays Off!
Another sneak peak angel wing from an illustration by Karl Bell for our collaborative and beautiful upcoming book, Night Lines — inspired by the work of William Blake (please see earlier blog posts for more info).
Now, I’m definitely no angel but I, among others, have worked hard on this project and am delighted to say our crowdfunder has been a roaring success. It closed last night and, along with monies previously raised and spent, a total of £2859 has been made available to bring this book into being. How wonderful is that?
If you’ve been a part of that, in whatever capacity, then please give yourself some love along that we’re sending your way. You deserve it.
I slept for a full ten hours last night but, this evening, I’m back to the work – keen to make sure the manuscript is print ready for when the funds finally reach us. That takes around a week, we’re told. So, I’m dotting each ‘i’ and crossing each ‘t’, checking a few last minute things with some of our authors and artists ‘just to be sure’, and then it will be on to the printers. Woohoo!
AG
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BLAKE BOOK PROJECT
Day of Reckoning
A sneaky snippet from an especially commissioned illustration by Karl Bell.
Yes, the time’s nearly with us when we’ll be unlocking the coffers and counting exactly how many books we can have printed. The average self published book sells one hundred copies and, with pre-orders in place, we’re confident of surpassing that. Our publication, though, is a little different — it’s not an e-book, or a print-on-demand paperback, it’s a quality cloth bound hard back coming in two separate limited editions. The hand-coloured versions will be each be unique, with a choice of ink or watercolour to suit the purchaser’s whim, and each one numbered.
At the time of writing this there is little more than ten hours remaining and we’re delighted to report 81% funding. The full £3,000 already included our projected ‘stretch’ as we want to fulfil the pre-orders before Christmas. That makes time of the essence. We’re a few pounds from £2,500, though, which will allow us to double our original order and every additional book sold will result in us doing more work in the community — working with young people, the elderly, and with other vulnerable groups to help them connect with their own voice and to let them be heard. It has the potential to make a huge difference.
With pledges starting at just £5, there’s still a few hours to add to what we can do, if you’d also like to be part of the story. Here’s the link: The Blake Book Project — Night-Lines. For those of you who already have: thank you, thank you. And we’ll keep you posted as to how things unfold.
AG
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BLAKE BOOK PROJECT
We Are Live:
Our Night-Lines Crowdfunder went live towards the end of last week but we were unable to feature it here on our blog, at that time, for technical reasons. But here it now is! We are hoping for preorders for the book (copies begin at £20), other items (starting at £5), or to receive donations, as these contributions will determine how many copies of the hardback clothbound edition will be produced. Any monies then made from additional sales will be used to seed more creative workshops back in the community.
Portsmouth, UK is a city with low literacy levels but, paradoxically, a history of literary excellence: Dickens, Kipling, Conan Doyle, George Meredith among others. It has a vibrant and successful creative writing programme witthin the university, with several lecturers within the Faculty of Cultural and Creative Industries, and other parts of the university, as well as other areas of the community, actively involved within our troupe. There are a thousand followers for Portsmouth’s online Writers Hub with T’Articulation being a fifty strong troupe of writers and story-tellers associated with that group.
We are ready and able to make a difference and to do it for free. We’d love to unlock the love of story in areas where it’s been forgotten and to find those hidden gems of creativity in voices that might otherwise be lost. We’d love you to help us to do those things.
The Blake Book Project — Night-Lines – a Community crowdfunding project in Portsmouth by T’Articulation (crowdfunder.co.uk)
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THE BLAKE BOOK PROJECT
Tom Sykes Explores How Blake Might Connect to Our Project:
https://videopress.com/v/hquuVUV1
Tom has been a member of T’Articulation from the start and is one of four current group facilitators. He is a Reader and Assistant Professor in Journalism and Creative Writing at the University of Portsmouth, a regular contributor to the local creative scene, encourager of people and purveyor of ideas.
He is the instigator for our subgroup The Portsmouth Psycho-geographic Perambulation Society, a founder of the recently inaugurated, beautifully bizarre, Spatchcock Hobbyhorse, a well-travelled drinking buddy to many and an all round good egg. He has written numerous articles, is a co-founder of Portsmouth’s award winning online independent newspaper Star & Crescent, and has an increasing catalogue of books to his name.
You can find out more about him and his list of academic research articles here:
Tom Sykes | University of Portsmouth
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THE BLKE BOOK PROJECT
We had a wonderful spoken word event last night. I have to admit to being a little nervous as, of our four facilitators, two of us have been compromised of late with one medical challenge or another. Then, three of our troupe performers had to pull out at the last minute, but the universe intervened – and no less than ten people arrived to take part in the open mic section, giving us more than twenty performers And most excellent they were too.
The theme for the evening was Stories of the Streets, and we had poetry about poster boys on Albert Road (an iconic road in Southsea); running the world via the street names of our city; the walking routes of ancient nomads; a clever concoction of AAA rhyming — and much more besides. Prose readers brought us keenly observed accounts of near-twinned coastal ‘towns’; ‘not a children’s story’; the harrowing tale of an asylum seeker; memoir work on moving to Africa; a summation of Portsmouth street names; a lovely debut piece about a special place where a mother and daughter have connected throughout the years, and too many more to give individual mention. There were songs in the mix, too, which, as something unusual for our events, was a delight.
All of this was a prelude, of course, to announcing the results of our recent Night-Lines creative writing competition. There were two strands of entry with each strand being either a poem or a piece of prose arising from one of two prompts — lines taken from William Blake’s poem, Night, from Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789). Those lines were: Walking round the fold and Our immortal day, respectively. It has to be said, the responses were of a generally high standard, and the adjudicators had a very hard time selecting the winners. Luckily, we had felt generous enough to offer rewards to everyone on the final shortlist of ten, the details of which will be given below.
The two winning entries Gaps by Sue Harper and I eat an Aubergine by Anna Barzotti will be published in the anthology. The authors will also receive a hand-coloured copy of the hardback book, a professional assessment of their work, a handcrafted bookmark and a set of postcards depicting commissioned artwork from the book. Their work will also be celebrated on this blog.
Our next-level winners will each receive a monochrome copy of the nonetheless beautiful anthology, a bookmark, professional feedback, and have their work published on the blog. These rewards, in no rank order, go to Nirvana on the Underground, by Will Kelly; a poem by Rachel Birchley; A History of Ambiguity, by Margaret Jennings; Naked with Wings, by Matt Smith. And our final awards go to the following submissions (again in no particular order): The Message, by Joan Horton; Seventeen, by Tina MacNoughton; Auvers-sur-L’Oise, a second piece by Sue Harper; Enfoldment, by Suzanne Parekh. Congratulations to all! These were the winners from a very strong field, and whilst we understand there will be disappointment for those who were not placed, we would encourage them to keep writing, to enter other competitions, including ones we might run in the future. A good number of you were merely a hare’s breath (we prefer that to the more mundane hair’s breadth) from the list.
The judging was undertaken by the facilitators for T’Articulation, all writers and professionals in their own fields. The biggest thing we learned from the process, though, is how subjective literary likes can be. When we each brought our ‘best pieces’ to the table, they only occasionally matched those brought by others, and where three of us promoted one piece, another had reasons to promote another. Warm discussions ensued, but we didn’t fall out, settling in the end on two decisive winners.
We were lucky, too, to have some of those listed in attendance at our Stories from the Strreets event, when we made the announcement: with three of the submissions being read out. It wasn’t until proceedings were over, however, that we discovered two late arrivals included one of the winners. If we had known, we would have hailed her from the platform and invited her to read her piece*. We had asked at each of the two breaks, but she hadn’t arrived by then and, as she wasn’t previously known to us, no-one called out to say she was in the room. We hope her prizes will make up for it.
If we were to give advice on how to win a competition, it would be to ensure you follow the rules for submission. In a large field of entries, please don’t give the judges an excuse to dismiss your work. They need to whittle things down somehow, and errors are the easiest things to spot — besides which, if a piece doesn’t follow the rules then the writer will appear as unprofessional. So, remember to take your time and not have a last-minute rush. Regarding the prizes for the Night Lines competition: feedback will be sent to each winner within the next twenty-eight days, and the book and merchandise will be made available after the November launch. The sharing of work to the blog will begin next week and roll out through the placed pieces, as outlined above. You’re in for quite a few treats, so do watch this space.
* Editor note: the woman letterly claiming to be the winner was, it turned out, an imposter. Which is another take away if you are running a comp. Thankfully, we were not doling the prizes that night –so she, and her very drunk friend, did not walk away with the spoils!
Please follow us here if you can, or catch us on:
T’Articulation’s Blake Book Project | Facebook
and, 
Tina MacNaughton reading her Night Lines’ comp entry, 19th May 2023
Photo credits: Richard Peirce
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Judgement Day
Our recent Night-Lines, Blake book competition was T’Articulation’s first foray into the public realm with such offerings, although each of our judges have past experience of assessing and, in some cases, adjudication. Nonetheless, the task was difficult. There were poetry, fiction and memoir pieces to consider for each of two prompts and, of course, diverse voices in all kinds of forms and genres. Perhaps, next time, we’ll make our lives easier.
We devised a process where each judge ranked the pieces for each given prompt then totalled the scores for each piece. Inevitably, there were tied places and some very differing opinions across the four judges, but no-one fell out. The winners for each prompt will be published, which is a big deal; we needed to be sure things were both fair and were right — even if those are the same thing. Discussions began. We to-ed and fro-ed over the winners, the places, and then the commended pieces until we were sure. And we are sure. And we’re confident all will agree.
The winners will be announced at our spoken word event, Stories of the Streets, on Friday 19th May — and declared on this blog at the weekend.
As part of the competition, we’ve negotiated publishing placed entries on this blog with, perhaps, one or two interviews. So, you can expect those to be rolled out from next week onwards. For the winners, though, you’ll need to wait for the book, out in November, although authors and titles will be declared with the overall results.
Our recent Night-Lines, Blake book competition was T’Articulation’s first foray into the public realm with such offerings, although each of our judges have past experience of assessing and, in some cases, adjudication. Nonetheless, the task was difficult. There were poetry, fiction and memoir pieces to consider for each of two prompts and, of course, diverse voices in all kinds of forms and genres. Perhaps, next time, we’ll make our lives easier.
We devised a process where each judge ranked the pieces for each given prompt then totalled the scores for each piece. Inevitably, there were tied places and some very differing opinions across the four judges, but no-one fell out. The winners for each prompt will be published, which is a big deal; we needed to be sure things were both fair and were right — even if those are the same thing. Discussions began. We to-ed and fro-ed over the winners, the places, and then the commended pieces until we were sure. And we are sure. And we’re confident all will agree.
The winners will be announced at our spoken word event, Stories of the Streets, on Friday 19th May — and declared on this blog at the weekend.
If you’re local to Portsmouth, UK, and would like to attend the free event you can find tickets here: Stories of the Streets – a T’Articulation spoken word event Tickets, Fri 19 May 2023 at 19:30 | Eventbrite
As part of the competition, we’ve negotiated the publishing of placed entries on this blog with, perhaps, one or two interviews. So, you can expect those to be rolled out from next week onwards. For the winners, though, you’ll need to wait for the book, out in November, although authors and titles will be declared along with the overall results. Hoorah!
There will also be a sneaky peak at some of our commissioned art work coming soon. We can’t wait. Please follow us, if you’d like to be kept up to date.
The T’Art Team
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T’ARTICULATION’S PORTSMOUTH PSYCHOGEOGAPHIC PERAMBULATION SOCIETY: INAUGURAL EVENT
Stories of the Streets
T’Articulation are back to doing what they’re known for, with a new spoken word event here on the Island of Portsea. We’re taking over the back room of a local hostelry, betwixt ‘Portsmouth Old Town’, the city, and Southsea. The topic of Stories of the Streets can, as always, be interpreted however members and open mic-ers choose but is also designed to accommodate those who attended our recent Portsmouth PsychoGreographical Society Inaugural Perambulation — convened and executed as part of Portsmouth BookFest 2023. The feedback was really positive: we hope to have more such events and to build an additional following in that area. For now, though, anyone who attended and has written, or otherwise created, something from the event can join our throng on Friday, 19th May and share their work with us.
We also intend to announce the winners of our recent Night-Lines fundraiser at ‘Stories from the Streets’, with outcomes reported here that same weekend. Followers of this blog will then get first glimpses of the winning pieces, and those of the runners-up, before inclusion in our upcoming volume of work.
So, if you are local to Portsmouth, UK, or can visit, then grab yourself a ticket for our free spoken word event. Come along and enjoy the vibe, bag a three-minute slot to perform if you will or listen to others for inspiration and entertainment. We promise you darkness and laughter, bonhomie and good fun. We are less forthcoming on slush and happy endings, unless you want to provide them. If you’re performing, you can also bring publications containing your work and tout them to the audience. How good is that? In addition, if you become a regular contributor, we’ll consider you for a coveted membership of the troupe.
For tickets and more details, please visit:
Town Map for Gosport and Old Portsmouth, before city status was awarded and WWII bombings allowed space for high-rise developments and more dubious street names.
Source, unknown.
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THE BLAKE BOOK PROJECT
Since the localised fundraising launch we’ve already accrued £600 worth of pre-orders in three weeks, with some wonderful donations on top. Beyond this, our Crowdfunder is yet to go live (watch this space for news).
Thank you so much to those who have already contributed.
We aim to raise a total of £3000. As most work is being completed in-house, done by the collective, it is really only the print cost that we need to consider. This figure will allow us to use high quality materials for what will be a fabulous book: clothbound, hardback, foil-blocked covers, with the text printed on linen-wove paper.
The writing is done, the especially commissioned illustrations are in process, and the manuscript is being compiled. We can’t wait to see it all come together. Our first glimpse of the proof copies will be after the money comes in, so making that happen is now key to the project.
As well as Crowdfunder pre-orders and rewards, there will be an online summer raffle, also via the Crowdfunder hub, and a few upcoming performance events — including one on Zoom so we can include our international followers and others who may nor be able to attend in person. Also, we shouldn’t forget our poetry and prose creative writing competition which ends on 30th April this year (2023). Entries have begun to come in and the pace for that should gather over the next four weeks. Don’t miss out, as it’s your chance to be published in the anthology and to be part of this project. (Please scroll down for how to enter.)
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THE BLAKE BOOK PROJECT
The Idea
In Autumn 2021, when we were all still reeling from lockdowns in the UK and writers from our wider community were suffering ever more from necessarily self-built ivory towers, it had become even more difficult to escape. Then someone suddenly had an idea. An agreement was had, and a community project was born. We might be apart, but our skillset remained, and if we all contributed an interlocking part, we could create something unique.
The first quest was to find the right inspiration. To do this, tomes were scoured, and key works perused. Finally, it was found: William Blake would be our muse and his poem ‘Night’ our inspiration. Forty-eight lines provided forty-nine separate prompts with one line being divided as it contained two ideas. Then, the allocations, randomly selected as in a straw-poll and the clauses, the phrases, were drawn.
It’s a brave new adventure, our new adventure, and we’ll be mightily pleased if you’d follow us on it.
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It’s competition time!
Hello all,
Thank you to those who managed to get to our fundraiser evening last Sunday. It was great to hear those readings, wasn’t it? And to generate such support from the audience. With pledges and pre-order book sales, we are already at 12% of our target of £3000. Excellent! More about book sale opportunities in a later post; this one is about another opportunity we hope you’ll spread far and wide — as well as having a dang good jango yourselves. All this is designed to raise a bit more dosh in advance of our actual Crowdfunder, which should go live next week. So, here goes:
T’Articulation Poetry & Prose Writing Competition, 2023
The competition is based on two possible prompts from William Blake’s poem, Night as inspiration:
1) ‘Walking round the fold’
2) ‘Our immortal day’
Competition first place winners for each prompt will be included in a beautifully illustrated hardback, clothbound anthology – alongside pieces from seasoned and professional writers from T’Articulation and the wider Portsmouth, UK writing community, using other line prompts from the poem. (Full list of prizes below.)
£5 each entry, or two for £8 (three for £13, four for £16, etc.).
Deadline: 11.59 pm, April 30th, 2023
Each entry should focus on only one of the prompts and must not use other lines from the poem. It does not need to be Blakean in style or allude to Blake in any way. We are looking for diverse voices from any genre or form – something that stands out.
Anyone, except those of us from T’Articulation’s facilitation committee, can enter (and as many times as they choose) – even if they already have work accepted for the Night-Lines anthology.
Responses can be either poetry (max 40 lines) or prose (max 1,000 words)
Limits exclude the title. The title cannot be the quote prompt or anything near to it, due to anticipated page layouts. The prompt may be included in italics within the piece but doesn’t have to be.
Payment, as above, should be made to the PayPal account: mandarama@yahoo.com and a note taken of the unique transaction number.
Each submission should be sent as an attachment to: nightlinescompetition@yahoo.com
The email subject line should state the title of the piece and the last five digits from the Paypal transaction described above, and nothing more. These details should be repeated the main body of the email, along with your contact details. If you are submitting two or more pieces, each will need its own email but the transaction number for the pieces can be repeated.
Submitted manuscripts should have their title at the top of each page (best to use the header facility), with the last five digits from the Paypal transaction copied to the top right of the page. The prompt being responded to should be identified beneath the title and before the work begins. If more than one page, page numbers should be inserted at the bottom left.
Entrants must not add their names to the manuscript.
An independent agent will keep a log of the titles, transaction numbers and contact details so adjudications can be married up to the authors once the process is complete.
There will be:
One first place winner per prompt, which could be either poetry or prose.
Ten shortlisted manuscripts, made up of five for each prompt.
First placed author pieces will be published in the anthology, due out in November 2023; be celebrated in T’Articulation’s dedicated blogs (we may ask to interview you); be given detailed feedback and receive a hand-coloured copy of the book, a bookmark and a limited-edition collection of illustration artwork postcards. Value over £100, over and above publication.
The next two places for each prompt: will be published on T’Articulation’s two blogs, given detailed feedback, a monochrome copy of the anthology and a bookmark. Value £40-£50.
4th and 5th places for each prompt, will be published on blogs.
The anthology will conform to T’Articulation’s agreed house style for form, font, layout and design purposes. Winning manuscripts may, therefore, be adapted to these by the editors at the point of compilation. Any further adjustment to word choice or content, for whatever reason, will be via negotiation with the author. All entries are to be made on this understanding.
All rights revert to the first-place authors twelve months after the volume is published. For other placed authors all rights revert back to them twelve months after publication on T’Articulation’s blogs.
The judges decisions will be final, with no discussion entered into – as is standard practice.
No amendments to work can be undertaken once work is submitted. The prizes will remain as stated with no cash alternatives.
If you’re on Facebook, you can also check out more of what we’re doing here:
Facebook blog: T’Articulation’s Blake Book Project | Facebook
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THE BLAKE BOOK PROJECT
12th March 2023
Night-Lines
This is the story of how a collaborative book project is being brought into being. Night-Lines is the working title for what is intended to be a beautifully rendered anthology, brought together by the spoken word troupe T’Articulation, from Portsmouth (UK).
In Autumn 2021, when the world was still reeling from lockdowns and writers from our wider community were suffering ever more from their self-built ivory towers, it had become even more challenging to escape. Someone suddenly had an idea. An agreement was had, and a community project was born. We might be apart, but our skillset remained: if we all contributed an interlocking part, diverse as those might be, we realised we could create something unique.
The first quest was to find the right inspiration. Something traditional, we thought. To do this, tomes were scoured, and key works perused. Finally, it was found: William Blake would be our muse, his poem ‘Night’* our inspiration.
Forty-eight lines provided forty-nine different prompts, with one line being divided as it contained two ideas. The allocations were randomly selected, as in a straw poll: the clauses and phrases were drawn by those who would go on to fulfil them.
*Night was written in the 1780s, then self-published alongside Blake’s own illustrations in his delightful Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794).
More information about Blake’s publication and processes can be found here:
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Welcome!
Hello writers, readers and anyone who is magically slipping between those two ways of being. This blog is specifically for you. It’s about conjuring up a creation, a collaboration with, we hope, an eventual joyous execution.
We are a successful spoken word troupe from Portsmouth (UK), writing and performing our work since 2018. We are creatives of all ilks in poetry and prose, numbering journalists, serious hobbyists, students, writerly academics, the self-published and the traditionally published are numbered among our members.
More recently, as a result of challenges you may recognise, we’ve answered our own hero’s call to adventure and are, now, additionally traversing new roads. Why not join us to see how we navigate the hills and the valleys, the rocky terrain, and the deviations? And, just maybe, you might enjoy a vista or two and gather some inspiration as we travel this new landscape together.
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